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Welcome to my humble blog! I'm a cake bakin' gal specializing in wedding, party and GLUTEN FREE cakes and other treats. They're purdy AND tasty!

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Monday, February 1, 2010

Clara's Birthday Cake

So this is Clara's sixth birthday cake. She requested a cupcake themed cake and this is what I came up with. It didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped, but the end result left me satisfied in a kind of that's-good-enough-for-my-given-time-and-resources way. I've never made a cake that I wouldn't make some changes to, if I had enough time.

But anyway, this is it. The cupcake topper was a raspberry swirl cake that I carved in two pieces to look like a cupcake. I covered each piece with fondant and stacked them. Pretty neat how a pile of six inch cakes can turn out so cute.

I made the cupcake tower out of strofoam cake dummies and cardboard cake bases. Slapped a little ribbon and paper on it, went crazy with the hot glue, and there you have it.

The cupcakes on the tower were gluten free dulce de leche with buttercream frosting. Not too shabby for GF, though I think chocolate is the best.

It was a pretty crazy day! I tried to brace for the worse with preparation, something very much out of character for me. And a good thing too, because even that barely cut it.

I had all the shopping done, black and white tablecloths, pink plates and forks and cups (um, for what? they drank out of juice boxes) and napkins, her first pinata ever, streamers, balloons, party bags, the works. Its one thing to buy the stuff, but to actually set it up...I bet they'd make a killing off of a party "installation" package. I'd buy in.

And as luck would have it, I had cake class that lovely Saturday morning. I was gone from 9:30-12:30, and the party started at 1:oo. I woke up early to make a ton of cupcakes, because who wants day old cupcakes? Exactly. So I whip up these cupcakes, get ready, feed the baby, wish Josh lots of luck with the three kids and the task of decorating the gym church with the various bits of cupcakey crafts I'd worked on in the previous days, and take off for class.

My phone would vibrate every 5 minutes or so during the class with last minute RSVPs. Clara had invited her entire kindergarten class, hence the church gym location of the party. I was only going to let her invite 10 friends. I said, "Clara, you can invite ten friends. What are the names I need to put on the invitations?" Clara, "Um, mom, I can't remember their names." Me, "Okay fine, here's a bunch of invites, you hand them out. Next day Clara, "Mom, I didn't have enough invitations. I need more." Me, "Great. I don't have any more. Here, you can give them this piece of paper with the info on them."

That's how it went down. And apparently kindergartner's parents don't RSVP until an hour or so before the party. I try to rush my cake class. I do. But ladies with frosting and speed (not the drug, but that would've been helpful) don't mix. I got out of there at quarter after twelve, rushed (within the law) to the church, grabbed Josh, rushed home and that's when things got out of control.

I grabbed all the cupcakes and then went to mix up the frosting. I made it about a week before. Its supposed to be good for two weeks. I opened the lid and got a huge wiff of spoiled. The stuff was rancid. That's just awesome. At this point, it was 1:00. I grabbed my mixer, my cream cheese and butter, called my mom to bring over some powdered sugar because I'd run out, and took off to the church.

When I got there, at like two after one, there were already several kids running around the gym. My sister greeted their parents and assured them, while the parents of the birthday child were not there yet, that their child was in good hands. I peeked in the gym, waved, smiled and dashed into the kitchen. I whipped up a double batch of frosting, swirled it onto the GF cupcakes and set up the cupcake stand.

Done? Not yet. One of the activities was to decorate their own cupcakes. I still had to color bits of frosting and stuff it into decorating bags. This stuff doesn't sound as time consuming as it really was. The kids played with the balloons, pin the cherry on the cupcake, and musical chairs all before I was done. Oh, and the pinata. That too. I finished right as the kids flooded onto the stage to sit at their tables and go through their pinata prizes.

I threw the filled bags on the table, announced that it was cupcake decorating time, and got swarmed. They loved it. Those kids love their sprinkles. Seriously, have a little cupcake with that glob of decked out frosting. I bet their parents loved me.